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Sunday, 31 January 2016

I bought these Coffee Talk papers from Nitwit last year as I thought they'd go perfectly with this image from Lili of the Valley. It's from the 'My Best Friend' Art Pad (retired) but I also have the stamp.

I thought it needed a large embellishment so I sketched a coffee cup shape onto one of the papers and cut it out. I've doodled around the edge with a black fineliner pen and added a heart (I used an X-cut heart punch). The sentiments are from the 'Sentiments to Fit Scroll' and 'Pretty Grungy - Good Times' sets by Lili of the Valley

My coffee froth was cut from white card using the 'Loopy Rings' die from Memory Box and I've also added a bit of white cheesecloth. The flowers have been coloured with an Ivory Promarker and I've added pearls/card candi for the centres.

Thursday, 28 January 2016

I'm just popping in quickly to say that the fabulous new trio stamps are now available on the Lili of the Valley website. I think they're going to be popular, so you'll need to be speedy if you want to be among the first to get them :D

I've made another card with the Vintage Car Trio, this time coloured with Distress Inks and teamed up with some old K&Co papers.

The fabulous dotty paper is from a Polkadoodles CD called Pretty Tuff.

I wanted to put the wording inside a speech bubble, you can get dies in this shape but I don't have one so I had to improvise. I have some nesting dies that are like ovals but with the pointy ends chopped off (I think they're Sizzix framelits but they've got separated from the packaging). A large oval die would work just as well.

I traced around the inside and outside of the die with a pencil and drew in the bottom of an apostrophe

I cut around the apostrophe with my craft knife (but not the top!) and slotted the die underneath it.

After passing it through my ebosser I now have a speech bubble

Mmm, time for a new blade in my craft knife I think, it's looking a bit raggedy. To disguise this I went around the edges a couple of times with a black fineliner pen.

I stamped my greeting in with Retro Alphabet stamps from My Sentiments Exactly.

Thursday, 21 January 2016

This image is 'So many presents' from the 'Party & Cake' Art Pad from LOTV (retired). I've matted her on Nitwit papers - 'Always and Forever Solid' and 'Romance and Roses'. The sentiment in the corner is a clear stamp from LOTV 'Sentiments to Fit Scroll'.

To bling it up a bit I added glitter to the flower on her hat and the hem of her dress.

For embellishments I've coloured some plain white mulberry paper flowers with a pink alcohol marker (Marvy V750) and glued some sparkly gems in the centre. The large gem is coloured with Graph'It marker 9307 to make it darker.

I made 'leaves' from the petals of a large flower - I coloured them with GI marker 9303 and then dabbed them with PVA glue and sprinkled glitter on.

Monday, 18 January 2016

Todays card features a lovely stamp called Little Skater from All Dressed Up. Isn't she adorable?

I coloured her in with my Graph'It markers:

Skin: 4115, 4155, 4180

Hair: 1210, 1230, 1270

Top: 4120, 4125, 4150

Skirt: 0000, 5115, 5135

Ground/Skates: 9500

I've added glittery highlights with Zig 2-way Glue and Glamour Dust.

Apart from the large dark cream rose, all the flowers are from my shopping spree at Wild Orchid Crafts. Oodles of deliciousness :D

The sentiment stamp is from the For You set by Lili of the Valley. The papers are from the Romance and Roses collection by Nitwit - I made the flower paper lighter by increasing the brightness in Irfanview (this is a very handy free image viewer with some simple features for adjusting your pictures).

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-All Dressed Up #47 Anything Goes

Saturday, 16 January 2016

Just a quick card this evening which I've made using one of the images from the retired Lili of the Valley art pads 'Party and Cake'. My hands are a bit gyppy at the moment so I'm limiting my colouring in where possible.

The two main papers are from the Butterfly Kisses collection from Nitwit. I adjusted the brightness of the dotty one before printing but I'm thinking it's too pale now I'm looking at it on the finished card. The small scrap of check paper is from the Country Meadow collection and the greeting is one of the stamps in the 'Simply Sophisticated' set from Lili of the Valley.

The gorgeous paper flowers are from Prima and I've added Creative Expressions dazzlers for the centres.

Hello lovely peeps.
Firstly, I would like to give a warm welcome to all my new followers, I'm delighted to have you all.
I will do the draw for my blog candy later on (assuming I can get Mr Random to work, lol) .

And now....

I'm thrilled to say that I am appearing as a Guest Designer at Crafting By Designs this week. Why don't you pop on over and join in the fun? The theme is 'Seeing Red'

I've used papers from 'The Promise' 8x8 pad by First Edition/Trimcraft and roughened the edges with my scissors (sorry, I'm still not bored of doing this!)

The stamp is one of the Gorjuss Girls - 'I Gave You My Heart'

I coloured her in before Christmas and I don't know what I did with the list of Graph'It colours I used. I think the hair colours were 3250/70/80/90 and the dress colours were 5210/20/40/45

In the mean time, I've made a card with one of the fabulous new trio stamps from Lili of the Valley that are being launched at the end of the month.

This one is called 'Vintage Car'.

I've coloured the images with my Graph'It markers:-

Paintwork: 8210, 8220, 8245, 8280

Tyres: 9404, 9405, 9406, 9407

Dashboard: 3110, 2130

Instruments: 4114, 41505, 4180

Steering Wheel: 9500, 9501, 9502, 9503

Sky: 7105

Outline: 9401

This set comes with three fab sentiments - the other two are 'Perfectly Vintage' and 'Classic Guy'.

I drew a box around the 'On Your Birthday' sentiment with a .01 Fineliner pen, then cut it out. I've mounted the sentiment and the images on foam pads for a bit of dimension.

The background is cut from an old Ordinance Survey map. There was a crease in the paper where the map had been folded, but I don't 'do' ironing so I covered up the crease instead. I die-cut some wood effect paper with a Sizzix/Tim Holtz strip die called 'Washerboard'

Saturday, 9 January 2016

Did I mention that I was a runner up in the Card Designer of the Year competition at Simply Cards & Papercraft Magazine? ;)

It was very exciting seeing my cards in print but you can't see the detail very well, so here's a close-up of one of them (I already posted my advent calendar here).

The background paper (rather appropriately) was from the 'Beach Bliss' 8x8 paper pad from Lili of the Valley and the shaker frame is die cut from a First Edition 'Silent Night' 8x8 paper (I used two nesting squares).

I stamped 'Little Mermaid 1' from Lili of the Valley (discontinued) onto white card and coloured her in with my Graph'It markers

The starfish were cut from coloured card using an X-Cut star die, then I rounded the points off with my scissors and coloured the edges with Distress Inks. To add some texture I dabbed white texture paste on with the end of a paintbrush.

The jellyfish was created by cutting a circle die-cut with scalloped scissors, colouring with Distress Ink (Evergreen Bough) and adding strings of pearls for the tentacles - it's a more grown-up version of the one I had on my Life's a Beach card.

Saturday, 2 January 2016

Have you made any New Year's Resolutions? Broken them yet?! One of mine is to use my good papers instead of hoarding them. Hmm, I wonder how long that will last :D

Before I show you my card I have some exciting news to share with you. I am one of the runners up in the 2015 'Card Designer of the Year' competition at Simply Cards & Papercraft.
Woo hoo! What a great start to 2016, I'm chuffed to bits :)

For my inspiration card I have used the fabulous digi 'Cool Dudes' from All Dressed Up.

I separated out the elements before printing as I wanted space around the mountains. There is a snowboarding dog included as part of this digi but I've left him out as this is for a cousin's birthday and his dog looks nothing like the one in the digi. I've coloured the image in with Promarkers and Graph'Its:

Hat/Top - Pastel beige, Khaki, Umber

Jeans -7105, 7110, 7115, 7119

Shirt - Ice Grey 1 & 2

Shoes - Ice Grey 4, 9506

Skin - 4110, 4150, 4180

My 'Something New' is a tree die from Marianne Designs, and the papers are also new. They are from the 'Manpants' collection by Nitwit. I printed them onto 250gsm card, edged them with Old Paper Distress Ink and roughened up the edges with my scissors.

About Me

I was born and bred in Cornwall (hence the blog address!) but currently live in Somerset with my lovely hubby Will and my loony cat Millie. I started making cards in 2006 after recovering from arm injuries and quickly got hooked. I love stamping as there are so many different techniques you can try. My favourite is colouring in - it's very therapeutic :)